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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Direct from the Runway: Herve Leger Fall 2009

"It's slightly 80s ... but we don't want the girls to look 80s," said makeup artist Diane Kendal for NARS Cosmetics backstage at Herve Leger during Fall 2009 Fashion Week. Drawing inspiration from Helmut Newton photographs, she and hairstylist Dennis Lanni for Bumble and bumble created a tribal warrior effect with earth tones and full, destroyed ponytails. Get the details after the jump.

"The clothes are very structured, but we don't want to go retro," Kendal told me. She did this by creating a very strong brow accented by dewy, glowy skin and a soft, smudgy eye. "It really is all about the eyebrow," she said.

To create this strong brow, Kendal brushed them to define their natural shape before filling them in with NARS Single Eyeshadow in Bali and brushing them again. She then dusted NARS Single Eyeshadow in Sophia to the entire lid, blending up toward the brows for natural shading, and curled lashes with the NARS Eyelash Curler. She did not apply any eyeliner or mascara so that the look would be kept fresh and natural.

A new product, NARS Sheer Glow, was applied to the skin to give it "a very fresh-faced glow," Kendal told me. (Sheer Glow comes out in September 2009.) This allowed the skin's natural highlights to shine through. Kendal finished by applying NARS Lip Therapy Treatment in Rain and a bit of NARS Concealer to the lips to keep them matte and neutral.

Over in the hair department, Dennis Lanni was hard at work using his "butterfly technique" -- a special technique he created to twist the hair into small butterfly sections before combing them out to make a huge "destroyed explosion coming out of the back," he said. The butterfly technique acts as its own type of crimping iron.

The look Lanni created had a dry texture on top and wet look on the sides. He created two ponytails, fastening the top into the back so the two different textures would show through. "It's a very visual look in the back and it's got a good strength to it," he told me. Lanni used Bumble and bumble Holding Spray, which is formulated with salt, to give the hair texture. "We're like cooks, we have a bunch of ingredients," he said. "I think the prevailant thing is the salt, which is the holding spray ... that's the proverbial salt."

As for why he went for a ponytail, Lanni told me, "We wanted to keep the hair off the clothing. Ponytails are always a great way of doing it but they could become a little boring, too, at times, so we’re always thinking of different ways of doing the ponytail." His ponytail was secured with a matte rubber band.

I also spoke with Wanda Ruiz from Creative Nail Design about the nails for the show. Short almond-shaped tips, which she said "look more sexy and slender," were painted with a custom blend of Jiggy, Voodoo Decadence and NFS. This created a mix between black, purple and blue with metallic undertones. Rather than attaching tips that had already been painted, she attached bare tips and then painted them with the enamel, finishing with Air Dry Topcoat.